St. Clair and Wayne 379 



enemy, for the low rate of pay was not attractive, 

 while the disciplined subordination of the soldiers 

 to their officers seemed irksome to people with an ex 

 aggerated idea of individual freedom and no proper 

 conception of the value of obedience. Very many 

 of the regular soldiers have always been of foreign 

 birth; and in 1787, on the Ohio, the percentage of 

 Irish and Germans in the ranks was probably fully 

 as large as it was on the Great Plains a century 

 later. 3 They, as others, at that early date, were, 

 to a great extent, drawn from the least desirable 

 classes of the Eastern seaboard. 4 Three or four 

 years latter an unfriendly observer wrote of St. 

 Clair's soldiers that they were a wretched set of men, 

 weak and feeble, many of them mere boys, while 

 others were rotten with drink and debauchery. He 

 remarked that men "purchased from the prisons, 

 wheel-barrows, and brothels of the nation at fool 

 ishly low wages, would never do to fight Indians" ; 

 and that against such foes, who were terrible ene 

 mies in the woods, there was need of first-class, 

 specially trained troops, instead of trying to use "a 

 set of men who enlisted because they could no longer 

 live unhung any other way." 5 



8 Denny's Journal, passim. 



* For fear of misunderstanding, I wish to add that at many 

 periods the rank and file have been composed of excellent 

 material ; of recent years their character has steadily risen, 

 and the stuff itself has always proved good when handled for 

 a sufficient length of time by good commanders. 



5 Draper collection. Letter of John Cleves Symmes to 

 Elias Boudinot, January 12, 1792. 



